Definetly from another planet!!

[Isheforreal]

My dh is always stopping of at the pub on the way home from work and comes in at varying times.7,7.30,8 sometimes midnight has been known to be so drunk,could,nt get a taxi and slept in the car waking me up at 5.10am the other saturday to let him in.He never answers his phone when I ring him up to find out how long he will be.
We have 2 children who are 5 and 3 and they have a great relationship with their dad.Me on the other hand go from thinking ok he likes a drink but he has never been unfaithful,he is a great dad,he works,he has never been physically violent.Then I have my down days when he lets me down all over again after he has promised to come home from work and have dinner with us and make an efort.I am left feeling disappointed,heartbroken for the children,used,a doormat you name it.

Tonights example he came home in a taxi at 8.30,children in bed and just annouced "oh sorry had a few beers again."
I have been up with the children since 6am and he missed seeing them before their bedtime and they are now starting to ask at dinnertime "will daddy be late again tonight."

He then looked on his e mails and had got a friend to send him a download of a song I like.Really sweet thing to do I know but I am afraid I did'nt show much appreciation due to the fact he had let me down agan.
Anyway he goes on to say shall we take the laptop upstairs and listen to the album and make love.
Bearing in mind he has had a few drinks and I am not happy at him coming home late ,first day of the week and normally means I 'll have a whole week of this again to contend with.
Then he gets annoyed and storms off upstairs because I say I am not in the mood.
What is it with men,obviously led by their manhood.I can't seem to get through to him that I am so fed up and unhappy with this drinking situation never knowing where I am from day to day.He can't see any wrong in what he does.He is acting like he is single and has no responsibilites,he is 45 for gods sake.

I am 40 this year and life begins at 40 so they say ,I don't want to settle for this life with dh for years to come and more importantly I don't want that for my children.
Have read some of the other relationship threads and am in awe at the people involved for staying strong through difficult times.
Which made me ask the qustion.

Am I overeacting ,should I be happy with my lot?

I don't think you are overreacting.I have no great words of wisdom either,but i know i wold feel really unhappy and resentful and not at all like making love!
I am assuming you have talked to himabout it and that nothing has changed.It's a damn difficult situation and i would not want to live like this either.I really hope there will be some help coming your way.

Thanks doobydoo for your reply.

I have talked and talked to him about this and he promises to change things but then just carries on as usual.

No,not over reacting,i have probs here too.
In my opinion there are 2 types of men;pub men and non pub men.
it wont go away-my dp has been a pain in the arse too,what i found helped was making a life of my own,going out regularly with girlfriends,taking up new interests,getting on with enjoying myself rather than worrying about dp being in pub or not.

He will have to take responsibility if you want to go out

notasheep-I do try and do that as much as I can but my self esteem is at an all time low at the moment. I suffer from panic attacks and had bad PND after my second child which I thought I had overcome but I can feel myself slipping back again.It's the constant not knowing factor that freaks me out I like to be fairly orgainised and now what I am up againest which helpsmy panic attacks.But with DH he is so unpredictable at times and I worry now my children are getting older that they will start to realise daddy is drunk and not just overly jolly!!!

Has he always been like this or has it got worse and worse?

Pierre -He has always liked a drink in the 14 years I have known him but I thought things would be different since we had the children.
The excuses he uses to drink are varied.He can have a bad day at work or a good day both reasons to go for a drink.He used to hate the job he had a couple of years back so that was a good reason for him .Now he has his ideal job he loves it so he drinks for different reasons now,social ,networking etc.According to him it's all part and parcel of the business world in the 21st centuary.

You haven't used that particular word but do you at heart think he is alcoholic?. You say as well you have known he likes a drink in all the years you have known him but thought things would be different since having the children. Unfortunately for you and the children this has not happened.

What triggers his drinking, do you think he is trying to escape from something?. It does not seem that he is admitting to a problem with his drinking.

The only one who can go onto change his own behaviour is him. Absolutely no-one else (not you or his children) can do it for him. It seems to me like his primary relationship is with alcohol and everything else comes a distant second.

I think you need to talk to someone about the extent of his drinking and what effect it is having on all your lives. Al-anon can offer support and understanding in this regard.

Seek help for yourself re the panic attacks - do you think at heart this has been brought on by his behaviours re drink?. Please go to your GP.

Your children are and will pick up on all this going on around them and it will effect them profoundly. Don't kid yourself that they don't know.

You need to act for your own sake as well as your childrens'.

APNI are also worth talking to re post natal depression. Will put up the details for you.

www.al-anonuk.org.uk

www.apni.org

I dont really have many words for advice but i do speak from experiance that my now x would go out drinking from work and roll in at 11 sometimes 8pm but mainly laterfrom 4pm (and at lunches aswell), he would nearly always miss our sons bedtime. It used to annoy me and like yours he used to download stuff for me to watch when he was out but it didnt undo all the staying out so i can understnad how you feel.

I was always assured that he had and never would cheat on me but he did two weeks before our wedding which did crush me. I knew that all of it meant nothing to him and i do really believe that i am better off without him. I wasted 5 yrs on him but didnt trust him because of all the stupid lies that started when i was pregnant. She is welcom to all the lies and bullshit which i am confident she will encounter.

As i said i can only tell you my story and if you want a chat you can do a call out for me.

Have only ever known pub blokes so unsure of what to do with unpub blokes and what to suggest to non pub blokes as i have a date with one. I dont think you should just settle as you will just fester. Goodluck

What makes me laugh is how many people think "well he doesn't beat me up, hasn't shagged anyone else and is "great" with the kids" so they have a good marriage.

If you were acting like he is, he'd be threatening divorce or moaning to all and sundry how shit his marriage is.

what is the alternative? do you want that? if so, fine, if not, then put up with it, or change it if you can. but do think through the alternatives

No I don't think you should be happy with this situation at all. I know that some men do feel the need to pop in the local for a drink after work as they feel its relaxing but EVERY night is definitely not acceptable. I feel so sorry for you and your children.

Fortunately for me DP doesn't do this, he too likes a drink but comes home and then asks if I fancy a bottle of wine or something and then we have drink together. I know I am incredibly lucky that I have a man who is like this but I made it clear from the start that I wouldn't put up with any crap like that from him. You really need to tell him you want to be a family and you want him to be around when the kids are going to bed, they miss him too.

If my DP is half hour late home from work on an evening DD (6) paces the room waiting for him.

I don't think being upset about this is unreasonable. He sounds alcoholic to me, tbh.

He clearly doesn't understand how much the random late nights annoy you.

And no, drinking is absolutely not necessarily a part of modern business life. My DH is very busy with work, and does very well, and generally doesn't drink - he might have, at most, two units (e.g. a pint) on a work night out, once a month or so.

isheforeal. I am in similar boat but I think more accepting of the situation. My DH can have lunch engagements that continue until 11pm but usually home 8pm / 9pm after DD in bed, a bit drunk. He doesn't have a drink problem and he can afford to spend money on bars/restaurants, in actual fact most of the expenditure is on expenses. His career doesn't suffer and in actual fact the City culture is largely a drinking one. He has always been like this so I know no different. I cannot imagine a world where each of us did 50% of the parenting. Some may say I am a doormat but at the end of the day I don't think it is possible to try and change someone. Our marriage is sound and when he is with DD he gives her full attention.

I sometimes feel jealous that he can sail, play golf, watch sports, eat in restaurants all on work time and paid for my work/client and he doesn't have to run home to do nursery collection/bath bed routine. But on other hand I wouldn't want his stressful job that involves entertaining clients and I do largely love seeing DD in the evening.

We now have an agreement that most weeks he stays sober and does nursery collection once a week. I use the time to cath up on work, window shop, get legs waxed etc, have a drink with workies, make a nice dinner for us.

Yes there is a huge drinking culture in the City. BUT, dw works in the city and chooses to come home to her family everynight. I did too when I worked in the City. It's a choice, it's not forced on him.

He makes the decision not to come home, it's that simple. The question is, why?

Hmm, my DH is in the City, and doing very well. (He leads a big international team.) Granted, he doesn't have clients (he's a techie). He probably turns down 3/4 of the outings he gets offered, and often just turns up for a little drink at the start of things. Sometimes, he stays for a whole outing, but still doesn't drink very much.

It doesn't seem wise, to me, getting seriously drunk with one's workmates.

At any rate, DH goes out maybe once per week, and manages fine with that. Nobody needs to be in a pub every night for work, unless they're a barman.

Drinking does not have to be part of working in the City. My dh used to drink a lot - 2 botles of wine at lunchtime was not unusual, all in the name of client entertaining. He is actually very well known amongst stockbrokers as a "legend in his own lunchtime". But this last year, he has drunk only 3 times on clinet functions. It was a decision he made, for his health and the health of our marriage, because like you Isheforreal, I was sick of him coming home drunk or not coming home in time to see the kids. He's now 3 stone lighter, sees his kids at least 4 workday evenings a week and much much happier. And his business is still going as strong.

But he was never as bad as your dh seems to be, and I still wasn't happy with it. He would always tell me in advance when he was going to beout and it was never more than 3 times a week. Your dh is using his job as an excuse and it is not unreasonable of you to expect him to stop acting like a single man now that he has a family.

Is he for real?

Oh yes he is is the answer to that question. How much are you prepared to put up with because he will not change despite your hoping he would when the children came along.

My DH works in a dealing room in London; a general working environment known for its long hours and the work hard play hard school of things. Many of them though do not take to drink every dayA to handle the pressure.

I am not totally convinced that your DH can give up drinking every day. He seems not to regard it as a problem.

Do you at heart think he is an alcoholic?.

re. city culture & drinking, it IS a choice. I have worked with v senior people / had clients who simply used to say "I don't do evening socialising without the wife / lunch is from 12.45-2.15 ONLY" they set the parameters and as a consequence people would respect them and not peer pressure them into anything else. Luckily my DH is also one of these.

But the OP is right, there are pub men and non-pub men & you can't really change them, they have to have their own wake-up call. WHich I don't agree is necessarily divorce - surely the first step is talking & an attempt to have some socialising TOGETHER.

I used to be a big drinker and all my previous bfs were drinkers too, I can imagine they wouldn't have changed with kids. (Thank God DH is not a drinker and when he's not working he's home to put Ds to bed with me.) I don't think I could live the way you describe things are with you, I always envisaged parenting as shared responsiblity. In your shoes I would definately start insisting he is home so I could go out some nights of the week. If you don't fancy socialising how about swimming or an exercise class as that can help with depression as well as getting you out of the house. A couple of friends of mine who both liked the pub where having difficulities until they came to an agreement where they both had one night out a week on their own and on Friday nights they always have a babysitter and go out together. That agreement saved their relationship. Her DP sometimes goes out for a later drink other nights but is always home to help put the kids to bed first.